


Overdone, Underdone

by Puffls



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Asgore Needs a Hug, Character Study, Depression, POV Second Person, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6268501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puffls/pseuds/Puffls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These days, you can't seem to get anything right.</p><p>Asgore cooks eggs and reflects on life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overdone, Underdone

Breakfast is a simple task. You don’t always bother with it, but today you find time to scrape something together before you tend to your garden. Eggs. You prefer poached. The yellow yolk of one drips across the plate, the white against yellow reminding you of the flowers and artificial sunlight that the barrier emanates. The yolk of the other is more firm. You snort to yourself in something that isn’t quite annoyance, but isn’t quite amusement. One is over-done, the other is under-done.

This seems to be the problem with you. Ever since she left, you haven’t done anything right. Everything is either worked past its limit, or never completed. You’ve drowned some of your flowers. Others have dried up from a lack of moisture. It happened only once, of course, since those flowers are nearly the only thing keeping you going at this point. You can’t give up hope; if you do, so will everyone else. Half of you is convinced that even though your people will be crushed, there will still be order. Life will continue. Someone else will take up the throne. Someone else will do a better job. But they won’t take care of the flowers.

The other half of you laughs at that thought, at the fact that it was a coherent thought, at the fact that it was a thought that went through your head. There’s no room for “what if”s, no time for that sort of thinking. You have a job to do, a kingdom to run. No one could do your job the way that you do. All of that negative thinking? It’s silly. You can’t think like that. Practice what you preach, so to speak. You can’t give up. You can’t lose hope.

Someone has to take care of those flowers.

 

***

 

Over done, under done. Giving up halfway. You consider things that you can’t seem to get just quite right.

The butterscotch-cinnamon pie, for starters. You can’t seem to make them as good as she can. As Tori can. You’ve tried and tried and tried again, matching her recipe to a fault, meticulously measuring and ensuring that it’s all correct. She may not be here anymore, but maybe if you got it just right, maybe, just _maybe_ , you can pretend that she still is here with her gentle smile and her warm laugh. The smell of cinnamon that laces the air, the warmth that fills the room. Maybe, just maybe, you can pretend that you can hear the sounds of laughter outside. The sounds of children running throughout the house, tracking mud from your garden over the wooden floors, the playful teasing, the bad jokes, the groaning in response, the laughter at the annoyed (yet amused) reaction, knowing that they loved her bad jokes, despite not admitting it. You know that getting something like a pie right won’t fix everything. You can’t undo the past. But it might be enough to let you relive those memories, even for a little bit.

You either overcook it, or you undercook it. You must be. Even when it looks perfect, when you think you’ve cooked it perfectly, it tastes like rubber in your mouth.

You think it’s silly, trying so hard over something with so little nutritional value. But you don’t stop yourself from doing it, anyways. Even when getting the measurements correct down to the last grain of sugar, you still can’t capture the warmth that Toriel was. You still can’t hear your children as they played and teased each other. You still can’t think of anything other than the gaping hole in your chest that they left when they did. When your wife finally was so frustrated, so tired, so disgusted with you, that she stormed away, never to be seen again. When your adopted child got sick, and how you never found out why. How you tried your hardest, oh how you tried, but couldn’t heal them. When Tori tried. When you both got every doctor in the Underground to look at your child, to put a finger on their ailment, to say, “oh, yep! This was buttercup poisoning! To fix this, you do this, this, and this, good as new!” even though buttercups weren’t common in the Underground, that your garden was one of the only places under the entire mountain where they grew. That your garden was the only place where they could have gotten them. When your child finally died, only for the other one to disappear. When your son, no, Asriel, to send you into a panic, for you to send out every member of the guard to look for him, for someone, anyone, to tell you that he isn’t where you think he is, doing what you think he’s doing. When you found him in your garden, already crumbling to dust. When you were only able to hold his face in your hands and weep as it spills over the golden flowers.

The golden flowers that grew nowhere else. The flowers that killed both of your children. The flowers you planted, took care of, watered, weeded, nurtured. You took care of the flowers. The flowers that killed your children. By taking care of those flowers, you killed your children. You killed both of your children. You made Tori leave. You ruined your own life, no one else. You are to blame, you worthless-

You don’t let yourself continue that thought.

Instead, you try another recipe.

It’s still nowhere as good as Toriel’s.

 

***

 

Not everything is as simple as butterscotch-cinnamon pie. Not all problems have the same repercussion of merely tasting bad when they go wrong. You’ve hurt people by overdoing things, by not following through with promises.

You thought you could do it. You were so angry at the humans for trapping all of you underneath this godforsaken mountain, for taking advantage of the pacifistic nature of monsters, for cutting down millions of your kind, whether or not they were involved in the war that those demons started. The dust of the innocent mixed with the blood of the guilty made a disgusting concoction that you were tired of seeing, of smelling, of feeling, of knowing. Magic and long-suppressed anger, grief, helplessness, hopelessness....everything rose to the surface when you spat out your order for the future of any more human “visitors” in the Underground.

The look your wife had given you let you know instantly that you had overdone it.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, she had said. You guess that you’ve always been blind, then, since one of their kind to match the loss of every one of yours was beyond fair in your eyes. You didn’t think that you’d regret those words so many years later. You didn’t think that she’d leave. You hated yourself for that order, and you hated yourself even more for acting on it.

Humans somehow found their way into the Underground.

You slaughtered every single one of them.

It was easy at first. After all, an eye for an eye, right? Those demons never hesitated when they cut down entire villages, sparing not even the smallest child from their wrath. It didn’t matter what age they were. It didn’t matter if they were children. It didn’t matter if they were adults. It didn’t matter, you had drilled into your head, as you tried your goddamn hardest to justify the first death, the first broken body whose blood stained the white fur of your paws.

The patrols of the guard used to go as far back as the Ruins of Home. There had been a pair of dogs who were newer recruits, desperate and eager to prove their dedication to the cause. They had discovered a small child-a girl, you thought-as she had stopped to tie a ribbon into her hair. You had been told that the dogs caught her off guard, and she dropped the ribbon in surprise. As it turned out, she was carrying a small plastic knife, that she tossed out not too much farther. When you met her, trident in hand, a wide grin stretched across her face. She ran and wrapped her little arms around your leg in a hug, much to your discomfort. After peeling her off, you led her to the barrier. Blood was rather messy, and you didn’t want it to harm your flowers or your floors, after all.

A battle began, but one could hardly call it a battle. More of an execution. You would have given her the first move, but she had nothing to protect herself with. Instead, you take a deep breath. Then another. One of theirs for one of yours. One of theirs for one of yours. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. You focus on your breathing and your justification. You were almost able to block out her screams as you skewered her with your trident.

The Ruins were locked after that.

It took a long while before you were able to wash away the blood.

The ages of the humans varied. None of them were adults. There were a few on the verge of adulthood, but none who were fully fledged adults. There were children. There was one who was just a toddler. A toddler, for god’s sake. A toddler. You wanted to scream that you gave up, that you couldn’t do this anymore, but you did. You hardened your heart and the human fell, screaming in pain, more often than not. It made you sick.

After the first one, though, you couldn’t back out. This was your responsibility. This was your burden. This was your choice. You were killing for a cause. If you backed out of your cause, it would be pointless. You would be a murderer. Not just a murderer, too! A murderer and a coward.

You already knew both of these things, but if others thought of you as that as well, you don’t think you could live with yourself.

So you set out for other people to find other ways to break the barrier.

 

***

 

The Royal Scientist was one of those people. Alphys was her name, and you always thought she was a jittery little thing. She meant well, though. She had a good heart. You had faith in her, and after the massive achievement she had with the Underground’s rising star, you begin to think that if anyone could do it, she could. She doesn’t tell you much, at first. Only that she needs access to the souls for study and possibly monsters that have fallen down. You let her look at the accursed things without a second thought, but searching for monsters whose friends and family had fallen down was a difficult thing to handle. Nonetheless, you discuss her request with the Royal Guard, who are able to get her what she needs. Everything falls into place, and off she went.

Her research with human souls is groundbreaking. Within a year, she was able to determine the source of their power, something called “determination”. Humans were able to survive anything on sheer willpower alone. You don’t doubt it. (You do make note of the fact that your wife would’ve loved that pun, however.) According to her, the fallen have been mainly nonresponsive to determination, but she’s trying her hardest. You don’t blame her. The friends and families of the fallen send her letters often, and you relay them to her. You don’t think she reads them, but you send them anyways. You like to mix in something nice with the deliveries, too. You know how hard this is. You don’t want her to feel overwhelmed by your shared goal.

When the news hits that they have finally awoken, the mail to Alphys increases exponentially.

Eventually, everything just...stops. Alphys won’t talk to you. She won’t respond to your texts, calls, letters, nothing. Unless you go to her lab, she won’t visit. You’ve grown worried for her health. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. You think you might be able to help, but she won’t allow you to. Your heart aches for her unwillingness to let anyone else to shoulder whatever burden is ailing her. You know that it’s too late now, though. If you wanted to help her, you should’ve noticed earlier, you scold yourself. It’s out of your hands, and there’s nothing you can do. Underdone.

You didn’t keep a close enough eye on this project, and now it’s been declared “done” before it’s time was over.

With no other idea of what to do, you rummage through your cupboards and dig out an old teacup. It was a favorite of the human, but now? That didn’t matter. That’s just a memory. Only a memory. You can’t disappoint a memory. They wouldn’t be upset. You loved it so much, anyways, and perhaps if you can’t help through words, such an important gift might do something. Anything. You aren’t sure what you’re hoping for. You just don’t want her to hurt if she’s hurting, you don’t want her to suffer in silence.

***

 

Sometimes, you think you can almost hear your son’s voice from the garden. It might be the smell of the cinnamon that’s getting to your head, but you could’ve sworn that Asriel was calling for you. Every time, you cave into that auditory hallucination, dropping whatever it is that you’re doing to go to the flowers that killed your children.

Perhaps it’s a ghost that hangs over your garden, because as usual, there’s nothing there. Your heart drops as the reality hits you: Asriel is still dead. He may still be there; his dust _is_ scattered across your beloved garden, after all. But the thought doesn’t reassure you, because despite him still being there, nothing remains except for dust and regrets. There is no reset button for life.

Whenever this happens, an odd sensation of deja vu and nostalgia hits you. You aren’t sure why, but you chalk it up to loneliness and one of the memories of your children running through the garden. You think you might’ve had some strange dream about Asriel waking up as a flower, though. You can’t remember much. Only your son’s face on one of the discs of your golden flowers, repeating one of the last things he said before disintegrating, like sand through your fingers. (“ _Mommy? Daddy?_ ” you can almost hear him cry, “ _I can’t feel a n  y   t    h     i      n       g._ ”) You always wake up from those dreams with puffy eyes and a dry throat, like you’ve been crying all night, and the feeling of something being off, but you’re never able to put your finger on what it is. It’s almost as if something’s been moved three centimeters to the left, but every time you check, it’s right where it should be.

You decide to lay it easy on the drinks before the feeling of whatever it is hits you too hard.

**Author's Note:**

> oh boy.
> 
> Started out as a writing exercise, but I'm happy enough with it, so why not throw it up on here? Bits had to be cut before it got too redundant, but maybe I'll polish those up and throw it in a second chapter or something. Who knows. For now, though, this'll just be a one-shot. I have plans on doing other drabbles like these with other characters, too. Been bouncing back and forth between one for Frisk and one for Sans the past few days, so we'll see how that goes!
> 
> Kinda nervous, since this is the first time I've thrown up my writing in YEARS, but I'm starting to wipe down the rust. If you see any mistakes, please please please let me know! Still figuring out how to use this site, so bare with me here.


End file.
